Talk detail

MG14 - Talk detail

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 Participant

Deffayet, Cédric

Institution

CNRS (IAP and IHÉS)  - 98 bis Bd Arago - Paris - - France

Session

AT4

Accepted

Order

Time

Talk

Oral abstract

Title

Consistent massive graviton on arbitrary backgrounds
Coauthors

Abstract

We obtain the fully covariant linearized field equations for the metric perturbation in the de Rham- Gabadadze-Tolley (dRGT) ghost free massive gravities. For a subset of these theories, we show that the nondynamical metric that appears in the dRGT setup can be completely eliminated leading to the theory of a massive graviton moving in a single metric. This has a mass term which contains nontrivial contributions of the space-time curvature. We show further how five covariant constraints can be obtained including one which leads to the tracelessness of the graviton on flat space-time and removes the Boulware-Deser ghost. The five constraints are obtained for a background metric which is arbitrary, i.e. which does not have to obey the background field equations.

Pdf file

 

Session

AT2

Accepted

Order

Time

Talk

Oral abstract

Title

Counting the degrees of freedom of generalized Galileons
Coauthors

Abstract

We consider Galileon models on curved spacetime, as well as the counterterms introduced to maintain the second-order nature of the field equations of these models when both the metric and the scalar are made dynamical. Working in a gauge invariant framework, we first show how all the third-order time derivatives appearing in the field equations -- both metric and scalar -- of a Galileon model or one defined by a given counterterm can be eliminated to leave field equations which contain at most second-order time derivatives of the metric and of the scalar. The same is shown to hold for arbitrary linear combinations of such models, as well as their k-essence-like/Horndeski generalizations. This supports the claim that the number of degrees of freedom in these models is only 3, counting 2 for the graviton and 1 for the scalar. We comment on the arguments given previously in support of this claim. We then prove that this number of degrees of freedom is strictly less that 4 in one particular such model by carrying out a full-fledged Hamiltonian analysis. In contrast to previous results, our analyses do not assume any particular gauge choice of restricted applicability.

Pdf file

 

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